1. Statement of the Technical Field
The invention concerns communications systems. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for enabling users located in different geographic locations to share motion imagery intelligence, analyze, and collaborate in real-time using added metadata.
2. Description of the Related Art
It can be advantageous for analysts and tactical users located in different geographic locations to share motion imagery for various purposes. Sharing such imagery can allow such users to analyze and collaborate in real-time. The problem of video multimedia collaboration using live video streams and archived video has not been widely addressed. Conventional systems tend to focus on individual image frames and do not take full advantage of the temporal nature of video.
Web conferencing tools have attempted to address some of the foregoing issues. Such web conferencing tools can allow users to share applications and view videos of each other in real time. However, such systems are not well designed to exploit such real time video imagery for purposes of multi-user collaboration and analysis. For example, such systems do not adequately address the need for user annotation of the imagery and tracking the changes contributed by each user in real time. This is partly due to the focus of most such applications on passive video viewing. Only recently has motion imagery become widely available for analysis applications. Accordingly, there is a growing need for systems and methods that facilitate collaboration among a plurality of remote users when viewing real time video streams.